A NATION CHALLENGED: THE PROTESTERS; Pakistanis, but Not Many, Angrily Take to the Streets To Denounce Bush's Stand

Pakistan's hard-line Islamic groups, deeply opposed to American military action against the Taliban, tried for a show of strength here today but instead managed only a modest display of the intimidating street power they often possess.

Their call for a nationwide strike was ignored by a majority of store owners. Attendance at rallies was generally unremarkable. But in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, four people were killed in three incidents as protesters pelted the police with rocks.

The protesters in Karachi attacked convenient symbols of the West like a KFC restaurant. One shopkeeper near the airport was beaten to death for defying the demand for a complete shutdown, the authorities said.

''Kill America! Kill America!'' was a favored chant at the demonstrations. But in Lahore, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Quetta and other cities, the verbal onslaught was reserved and predictable.

For now that seems to indicate that Pakistan's military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has widespread support in siding with the United States against the radical Islamic rulers of Afghanistan, the Taliban.

But whether that support for the military government will last if American bombs hit Afghanistan, a Muslim neighbor, remains to be seen.

''For the first time, our soldiers are turning their backs to our enemies!'' complained Hakim Abdul Wahid, a speaker at an afternoon rally in Peshawar. ''If our soldiers are giving up, then it will become our duty to defend our brothers in Afghanistan.''

But however temperate today's protests, Pakistan remains at the edge of civil unrest.

Indeed, this is a place near many brinks. It is a nuclear-armed nation forever near a fight to the death with its nuclear-armed nemesis, India. The population, at 140 million, is the seventh largest in the world, but most of the people are dismally poor and growing dismally poorer.

The treasury is $37 billion in debt, with international lenders supplying only a weak handhold to keep it from falling into bankruptcy. The estimated number of heroin addicts runs neck and neck with the estimated number of taxpayers.

In Pakistan military governments, aloof to democracy, regularly trade places with elected ones. General Musharraf took power in a coup in 1999. Self-installed, he first referred to himself as chief executive, though now he prefers the title of president. He is popular only in comparison with his civilian predecessor, who was despised.

The society's main cleavages are religious, with Sunni and Shiite Muslims in regular urban shootouts.

The government itself has armed groups of Muslim extremists, bidding them to fight jihads in Afghanistan and the disputed territory of Kashmir. In recent months, and after much reflection, it has tried to take some of their weapons away, afraid that the zealots will now turn on their less zealous benefactors and use the guns at home.

With the Taliban thriving in Afghanistan, for years many here have talked about the ''talibanization'' of Pakistan. The nation's religious political parties have fared poorly in elections, but their strength has been in the numbers of followers they can bring into the streets -- and how long they can keep them there. That was today's test.

In the morning a crowd gathered near the ornate green minarets of the Qasim Ali Khan mosque in Peshawar. One after another, students from religious schools marched up the street, shouting as they went. Some called America's president a dog in the Urdu language. Others favored the term donkey in Pashto. One group tore apart a Bush effigy. The only actual violence was the manhandling of a young pickpocket whose skills had failed him.

''If the Americans come to Afghanistan under any pretext, whether they say it is to bring peace or an end to terrorism, they should know we will declare jihad and the people of Pakistan will defend their brother Afghans,'' threatened Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman, a rousing orator and a chief of the powerful Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam religious party.

He arrived at the scene in a small caravan, which parted a crowd that largely went away disappointed. He drove right past the mosque so he could deliver his remarks in a smaller setting, more suitable to the foreign press.

''I want to tell the Americans and Europeans: don't bring fire to our homes, or your homes will not be safe either,'' he said, adding to his sequence of warnings.

Peshawar, in Northwest Frontier Province, might well be considered the capital of the Afghan diaspora. Nearly three million people live in the area, and about a third are refugees from Afghanistan's long run of woe -- 22 years of war, 4 years of drought. Their presence has changed the character of the city.

This afternoon, many of the refugees tagged along as a sound truck beckoned a crowd. Several thousand people ended up in the procession, many appearing confused about what to do as the throng walked past a mosque still holding midday prayers.

The cries of ''Kill America!'' were drowning out the worshipers' words of rejoicing: ''God is great.''

Finally speeches began. But some listeners let their attention drift. They were looking at the latest article in an Urdu newspaper, an update on a story a great many people here believe: that Jews were responsible for the attacks on the United States.

In one reprinted version, attributed to a Middle Eastern newspaper, 4,000 Jews had jobs at the World Trade Center, ''but not a single Jew was reported dead in the attacks, and now American officials are investigating as to how these people got their advance information and did not come to work.''

That grotesque scenario, with no basis in fact, is believed by many Afghans and Pakistanis, whose world view is stunningly different from that of their Western counterparts.

''How can it be explained that not a single Jew was killed?'' asked Sher Hyder, a man who lives in a refugee settlement. He did not doubt what he had read in print.

To him and others, Osama bin Laden is not the first name on their list of suspects. Indeed, they often sound like civil libertarians while speaking in his defense: Where is the proof? Shouldn't there be a trial before a man is wanted dead or alive?

Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman, during his speech of threats, himself paused for a lawyerly aside. ''It's a strange situation,'' he said. ''The United States is the accuser, the prosecutor and the judge who convicts.''